I’ll start. I have recently gotten into 3D printing, and, while incredibly frustrating sometimes, there’s nothing more rewarding than getting a perfect print.
Outdoor warning sirens. There are so many types out there with their own unique appearances, sounds, and manufacturers, and there is a ton of history behind them. I find them fascinating, both in how they work, and the history. There’s a pretty large community of siren enthusiasts such as myself, and we often go out to record siren tests, acquire and restore retired sirens, and discuss them. It’s been a hobby of mine for a decade now.
The ability to identify practically any bird or reptile in North America. I get friends asking me what things are all the time… then trying to extend my knowledge to fungi and plants (which I’m getting better with, but not at the same level). It doesn’t feel too niche until I interact with my friends outside of biology.
Hi there! There are a bunch of active nature-centred communities on mander.xyz you might enjoy :)
I have an account for that instance too, hah. I might make that my main. Definitely my people!
Csound coding. Most musicians are thoroughly ensconced in their relatively-easy-to-use hardware and software. Me? I want to have sample level control over everything by writing reams of code and come up with algorithms that generate interesting textures, melodies, harmonies, and rhythms.
Ooh, can we hear some of your stuff?? That sounds awesome! I’ve never heard of such a thing.
I release almost everything I write through Distrokid as “Underwaterbob”. So, it’s all on whatever they release to, which is all the usual suspects like YouTube, Apple Music, and Spotify. Here’s the YouTube channel. The most Csound heavy recent releases are “Abiotic” and “Voltaic Fauna Bodies” though on the latter I use hardware synthesizers driven with MIDI files I generated in Csound. Sometimes physical knobs are nice.
Home brewing. It is fun for me to talk about the process of making beer and why my beer is cloudy and has sediment at the bottom
Calligraphy. The color of the inks are just mesmerizing. But my normal handwriting is really ugly…
I’ve never really enjoyed playing online games. (I don’t like being harassed by strangers. I have enough problems with my self-esteem, thank you.) But now I’ve gotten into several niche games I’d prefer to play with people and I have no skills or energy to make that happen. The most niche one is the Armada 3 mod for Sins of a Solar Empire. I love that game and I’d love to play with my friends, but my friends have very little trek fandom/rts enthusiast crossover.
I realized a while ago that my true hobby is learning. I love learning new things such as:
- Ukulele
- Tin whistle
- Juggling
- Kendama
- Unicycling
- Ham radio (and morse code and electronics)
- Esperanto
- Fencing
- Sailing
- Krav Maga
- Swing and Ballroom Dancing
I’ve learned bit of all of these, master of none though…
Mi ankaŭ lernas esperanton!
I’ve been at it for a bit over a year, casually chipping away at it on Duolingo. I have a feeling I’m probably in pretty much the same boat as you, there’s no particular reason I’m learning it, just kind of seemed like something different to do.
And I dabble in a bit of ham radio, but I don’t do much with it, and I’m curious if this has been your experience as well. I think the biggest problem with ham radio is other hams, because for a lot of them their biggest hobbies is ham radio so all they want to talk about is ham radio. Don’t get me wrong, I think antennas are cool too, but surely they must have something else going on in their life worth chatting about.
Yes, other hams are the number one problem with ham radio. I was really into it for a long time and met some really good people in the community but when I moved across country it really fell to the wayside.
Gunpla. It’s literally assembling Gundam (Japanese transformers) models. Modern gunpla kits are very cool with what they can do. This can be a pricey hobby if you get really into it (painting, air spraying, even 3d printing) but it can also be a $20 a month hobby. It all depends on how far you want to take it and what aspects you enjoy.
